Oh, and in the interest of THOROUGHNESS, the song Joyce’s church is singing was written in 2000, a few years after my time in regular church attendance, so here’s the NINTEEN NINETY-EIGHT version that uses many of the same lyrics, adapted from a 1738 John Wesley hymn, performed by the acappella group Glad, which I’m more familiar with.

He’s got a shotgun in his hands
He’s got a sawn-off shotgun in his hands
He’s got a shotgun in his hands
He’s got a shotgun in his hands
[Actually, the “sawn-off” is just there because at school I kept changing that line to “He’s got the whole damn world in his hands.” Not for blasphemous reasons- the rythym just felt a bit weak otherwise. So it begins.]

Carla kneels down and tightens her rollerblades. Mike yawns and they both get ready to fight.

Carla begins to skate at Mike, who dodges out of the way at the last second. She circles around again and does a flying kick at him. Mike grabs the skate and slams her into the ground.

Carla: ugh…

Carla does a black flip, and skids out of the way.

Mike: You may think you’re an asshole.

Runs up to her

Mike: But you don’t know the meaning of the term!

Mike slams his fist into Carla, Carla just barely manages to avoid going over the edge and grabs the ledge at the last minute.

Mike: You lose this fight Carla!

Carla: No!

Carla manages to vault herself over Mike and lands behind him, Mike just barely manages to dodge her attack and avoid going over the edge.

Mike: impressive, this just may be an interesting fight.

The two of them rush at each other, each trying to gain the upper hand. Carla skates circles around Mike but can’t get past his defenses, luckily though she’s to fast for Mike to hit either.
Mike: We appear to be about equal, Carla.

Carla: No…I’m better.

Mike: And why is that?

Carla: Because the entire time we were skating, I was leading us closer to the edge!

Mike looks down and realizes that he’s on the edge of the arena.

Mike: You clever bongo.

Carla: Why thank you!

Carla skates at Mike as hard as she can, before punching him in the stomach. Mike coughs up blood as he’s punched out of the arena.

Winner: Carla Rutten

I’m going to be busy for a bit, so it may be a while tell the next update.

No, just finally realized how terrible they actually are. There are tons of Christians who don’t realize how fucked up the whole “Sent my Son to help you assholes and you killed him, but he knew it was coming and was (mostly) okay with it, so it’s all good” thing really is. :/

some people react differently than others. I have lost track of how many things i have seen that are like “you either cried at this or didn’t see it” or “if you didn’t cry about this you aren’t human” but i have yet to have cried over any of those i have seen.

Right? But then I teared up for “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” so I AM human, which is a relief.
All those things about “If you didn’t cry watching Up you aren’t human” made me think I might be a sociopath or something

You can be compassionate but not empathetic, and empathetic people can still be assholes. I don’t ever empathize, I don’t feel other people’s emotions as my own, but I still recognize and care about other people’s feelings. Manipulative people are generally very empathetic.

You grow up not thinking about the words, just taking it as normal, and then.

I always -wanted- to feel that utter devotion when I was a kid, and I tried and tried, and I never felt anything, and I then just gave up. I know there must be people like Joyce who really sincerely believe instead of just thinking that they should believe while feeling nothing, but I can’t really comprehend it.

I’m with Nothri. My oldest brother is one of the smartest people I know and he’s a very devout Christian. I don’t like Christianity either, and it bugs both me and my roommate how many very intelligent people we know that are Christian (because we both have a lot of intellectual beefs with it), but this is classless shittalking that does neither side favors.

Intelligence and stupidly are a series of sliding scale, really. Take Ben Carson as the ultimate example. Brilliant enough to get through med school and become a freaking pediatric Neurosurgeon…. Dumb enough in other ways to believe that the pyramids are grain silos and that vaccines cause autism (despite more than a decade of searching for and failing to find causation.)

Believing that of the almost 5 thousand religions in the world, yours just happens to be the “right” one is kinda dumb, but that doesn’t mean a person can’t be brilliant in other areas of thought.

That said, there’s dumb atheists and smart religious people, but the latter tend to be less mindlessly devote and more “I believe this aligns with most of my own ethics and it’s kind of a good message”. Doubting something is the first step to reaffirm your belief in it.

Warahammer aside, small minds ARE easily filled with faith: as in, physically small – children’s minds. The vast, vast majority of “I put contrasting facts in the recycle bin” hardcore faithers were indoctrinated into something as a child. It might not have been the thing they eventually latched onto (though it usually is), but they were trained into the idea of unthinking faith about *something* back while their brains were physically malleable.

And then they got old, calcified, and like all the rest of us became violently opposed to so much as considering the idea that we could be wrong about anything.

No I suppose not. I saw someone become a Christian during college in full throttle. Happy as can be and completely involving with the local church. Something personal happened, not sure what, and that devotion just turned cold almost immediately and he just basically returned to how he was living before joining said Church.

Sometimes devotion’s just that and it’s not enough for he religious relationship.

I see that with vegetarians. Some people just don’t eat meat. You notice, and a decade later it’s the same with them. Some people want not to eat meat. You can’t help noticing because they rub it in your face, and two years later they silently reverted.

Those who find it necessary to preach more often than not are primarily preaching for their own sakes. They try recruiting embarrassment as the last savior for their ailing faith.

Oh, I have a lot of respect for the Bible. But I’d not use 2000+ year old preserves in my kitchen either. Never mind how impressed I am by the canners’ skills. There is a lot to learn from it but eating it out of the can, even or particularly under enthusiastic guidance, seems like a bad idea.

That’s actually a fair assessment and I wish more people would consider that. The Bible is full of wisdom, but you have to keep in mind it was written 2000+ years ago, and thusly needs to be kept in the proper historical context. A lot of scripture has vastly different meanings than what people think they do if you bother to consider the fact that it was written in a vastly different culture than the one we live in.

First time driving out to Eastern Oregon, in my quest to find a radio station that wasn’t Christian Rock (eventually found a couple) I hit upon some pop-ish song of “where you go I’ll go, where you stay I’ll stay” and so on. Rather stalker-y.

Though really, quite a few songs are ruined by listening to the lyrics. That hip 90s dance craze the Macarena? The singer’s boyfriend isn’t nearby so she bangs his friends.

It’s totally true that for a number of people a lot of these songs are very meaningful and enable an honest relationship with God. It’s also true that a whole lot of the rest of us find them really annoying. But there’s not a lot of money to be made in labyrinth-walking or candle contemplation or liturgical dance or shared story-telling. So a lot of churches never hear about a lot of that stuff. Pity.

But this song, at least, is not about your devotion. It’s about Jesus’s. It’s “this big God guy who made the universe decided to allow himself to be tortured and killed so that you could live forever. Isn’t He awesome?!”

I mean, I get why the words trigger Joyce here, but the song doesn’t mean anything close to what ToeDad was saying. (To be honest, I’m still not sure where that came from–I grew up pretty much like Joyce but never heard it.)

Jesus died for our sins because he was special. No regular father can die for his kid’s sins.

This song is definitely about your devotion. You’re leaving out half of the song in your description. “This big God guy who made the universe decided to allow himself to be tortured and killed so that you could live forever. …… so you owe him your life and deeds.” It’s not presenting Jesus as having done this without wanting something in return. It’s presented as a compelling, iron-clad reason for you to give yourself back, submitting to him entirely.

Likewise, since Toedad was willing to die on Becky’s behalf, maybe she should come with him and do what he says. It’s martyrdom presented as passive-aggressive ownership of another person. It’s emotional extortion. It’s not “amazing love” if the consequence of not returning the favor is eternal damnation. That’s not even regular, mundane love. It’s just God demonstrating the “Nice Guy” trope, thinking if he puts enough quarters into you, the human vending machine, that eventually you’ll dispense with the lifelong devotion. But he’s so nice! He did all these things for you! Now why don’t you just give him what he wants. That’s love, right?

Man, I’m sorry you, and so many people here, had to go through that. I’m not religious anymore, but when I was when I was a kid, knowing God had my back, that was comforting. It was something I could fall back on even though I was raised really casually religious. I can’t even imagine it being so vital a part of someone’s life and at the same time having all that fear piled onto it.

But… it is not God the one being a “nice guy”. It’s the author of songs like these. While in the Bible there are several instances of God demanding obedience, they’re often linked to his role of a king/father/god, i.e. an established authority that allegedly knows better. I’m not going to say there’s none, because I don’t know the Bible by heart, but I really can’t come up with any passage where obedience and devotion is demanded in relation to Jesus’s sacrifice. When that sacrifice is mentioned, the idea of it being an undeserved, unpayable /gift/ is the one being discussed.

Well, generally, I refer to John 3:16. Sure, often the (translated) word “gift” is used in other places, but it’s arguable whether that word is being used accurately if its delivery is dependent on your response — that the fate of your eternal soul remains conditional, whether that be through faith, works, or a combination of the two. Because if it wasn’t, and no reciprocation is needed, then I’m not sure why there needs to be a lake of fire (into which the “cowardly, the faithless, the detestable… murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars” are being thrown into at the end of time), or even why Paul rushes to create converts before Jesus’ Second Coming. I mean, if there are no conditions, then there is no separation from God after death, no need for a lake of fire. Paul’s doing that stuff for nothing. Everyone’s already gotten their free gift. Why even have a Bible? We’re all going to Heaven, the gift was free.

Actually, an interesting angle to consider there which I just thought of. In Revelation, it says that God would rather you be cold or hot to him than lukewarm. If you’re lukewarm, he spits you out. And there’s no better way to make someone lukewarm to God than to tell them about Him and have that person sort of loosely try to game the system and misconstrue His teachings in a deceitful way for personal gain without REALLY believing in it. But without being witnessed to in the first place, that person would probably have remained cold. It probably would have been better if Paul hadn’t told them about God at all!

David, what you’re describing is universalism, which is constantly popping up as an option for Christians through the centuries. I personally don’t buy it, because it’s inconsistent with the reality of free will. Sure, I can be given a gift, but I don’t have to accept it. God’s not going to make anyone live for eternity if they don’t want to live in reality. And if that reality includes an actual supreme being, then that might have implications for how we live.
Paul’s preaching was to let people know the good news about Jesus so they would have hope and so they would have a reason to live faithfully. I don’t think he did ‘conversion’ in the spiritual scalp-seeking way of much modern evangelism. And I think those who end up ‘in the lake of fire’ (to use that biblical metaphor) are far more likely to be those who act religiously and without love, than those who live lovingly.

Sorry, for the late reply and thanks for the thoughtful answer. Bringing metaphorical light into darkness, I believe, has always been shown in the Bible as a rather risky thing that cannot be done irresponsibly for the reasons you mention. A predicated system of semi-conditioned behaviour-reward that is widely known (put some prayer coins in the machine, put some good deeds coins in the machine, put some actual coins in the machine, ka-ching! Here’s your ticket out of [insert gruesome depiction of hell to ensure the flow of coins]. People who believe themselves to enter such transparent trade agreement, will very obviously attempt to game the system.

As for your point of a true gift of forgiveness and salvation entirely obviating the necessity for a lake of fire, I agree. But I believe that the way it is pictured in the Bible is that while the gift is true and real and readily available, you still have to accept it. If you don’t accept the gift, what drags you to this metaphorical lake of fire is not a punishment for not accepting the gift, but rather the unredeemed punishment for your sins that you were already warranted.

I suppose that’s one way to look at it. I myself choose to look at it like… While you are able to live your life on your own, your parents who love you kept your room for you if ever you feel like coming home again. If you choose not to, that’s fine you just live your life and however it plays out, it’s subject to whatever rules you are living in. If you choose the room though, you’re subject to the rules at home though.

Yeah you can see that as being passive aggressive. It’s either that or someone who loves you creating a safety net, in hopes you take it.

Exactly. That’s where it all falls apart. Jesus makes this amazing sacrifice for you to save you from Hell. Which would be a really awesome thing if Jesus was some underdog rebel fighting against the monster who’d condemned us all there in the first place. But he’s not. He’s God.

So God condemns us to Hell for not meeting His standards and then gets Himself tortured and murdered in our place so He can still mete out the punishment He decreed, just that He’s doing it to Himself not to us. Why? Why not just forgive us if He wants to do so?

God forgives you at birth, but Sin prevents said forgiveness from getting to you. Old Testament circumvented Sin by way or ritual and rules, but the New Testament establishes that you need a relationship with God.

Relationship with God doesn’t mean FOLLOW THY RULES 100%, it does not mean you gotta Tithe every week, it doesn’t mean you gotta have a strong Sunday attendance. What it means it talking with God, reading what he has to say, etc. If you build a relationship with Him, you also tend to listen to his words more and follow them. You’ll break them from time to time, because human, but because of the relationship you have you can be forgiven.

I mean think of the relationship between a kid and his parents. Maybe the parents put their kid in their will from the beginning. However later in life, their kid goes off into the world and breaks contact. The parents die and their son is still in the will, but no one knows how to contact the kid to tell him. He can’t inherit what they left him because he’s nowhere to be found.

Jesus’ “sacrifice” is questionable at best. What did he sacrifice? His life? Not really. He comes back to life three days later. All he sacrificed was his time. I do that all the day. Worship me instead.

Sustitutionary atonement is one of the most toxic things about mosst models of Christianity. Not an original part of the Jesus movement. Based on a reading of the Jewish scriptures that is out of line with what Jews believe. Just a massive wrong turn and misreading.

Dude, what the fuck, you claim Willis is lying about his own life experiences?

Okay, allow me to be datapoint number 2. Grew up surrounded by that culture and Amazing Love is a worship song and that is a guiding point on which you are supposed to fixate on while worshipping. Amazing Love does not explicitly call for one to sacrifice one’s full life to the Lord because he died, but it sure as hell implies it and the post worship song explanation song (because in this sort of Church, everything gets explained and interpreted according to this narrow form of Christian doctrine so that no one comes to heretical interpretations of the text) always emphasized that it was about how Christ’s sacrifice and “love” proves that you must provide your “love” in return in the form of eternal servitude because aren’t all we sinners unworthy of such awesome amazing love as that.

Also?

“It’s my joy to honor You
In all I do, I honor You”

Means sacrificing one’s life to serve God in this type of Church. That’s what honoring means in this flavor of Christianity. You honor your father and mother with obedience. You honor your God with obedience. Obedience is how you honor in that world.

So fuck off with that “you’re lying about the very faith of your upbringing” shit.

There are actually a lot of versions of this song (and many like it), so be careful before calling someone a liar. My church’s version’s chorus went-

Amazing love, how can it be
That thou my god shouldst die for me

I don’t remember much of it, but that is an underlying theme of the concept of “worship” in many right-leaning Protestant sects. “He loved us before we were born, therefore we owe him all our lives in service.”

To be fair, the lyrics of this song reflect only one theory of atonement. I’m not a Christian anymore, but I personally felt the Moral influence theory of atonement made more sense. Soteriology is complicated, and of course each church/denomination presents their own views as the only correct one.

Yeah, that was one of the big sticking points that kept me from abandoning the heatheny pagan ways I was raised in by my mom for the “love” of the particular flavor of Christianity I was raised around and also why I have always struggled with the “love” arguments of more liberal forms of Christianity.

Like, the way the sacrifice is presented, hell, the way Jesus is presented is all sorts of fucked, at least to me and I am sorry that I’m probably going to go in a very blasphemous direction with this interpretation, but this is what I got out of really trying to understand this story and its impact on the people around me when I finally got around to reading the Bible in full.

Like, God rapes this kid’s mother, impregnating her and only informing her that it even happens afterwards. He then bails on the kid for pretty much his entire childhood, comes back and is like, what you had a career and a life, fuck that, you’re working for me now, praising my love and shit, because I gave birth to you and now I own you. And oh, yeah, you’re gonna die too and even when you’re begging on the cross, I will not save you. And this will mean something, about sacrifice… Hell, you’re sacrificing for everyone else’s sins now and so that’s why they’ll have to worship me otherwise I’ll torture them for all eternity and make their lives miserable while they are alive.

It’s such transparently abuser logic.

And yeah, a lot of this is probably a major fault in how Christianity was presented where I grew up and there’s probably interpretations where this sacrifice wasn’t some petulant act of child abuse spun as reason to devote your entire life to an awful abusive piece of shit, but fearing the judgment of this eternal abuser who would hurt you if you didn’t spend every waking moment talking about how awesome and “loving” he is really set me wrong and even more set me wrong when I was reading through the entire Bible at the same time I was discovering all these great feminist books.

But I still have a bit of a negative reaction to the notion that I somehow owe my entire life of servitude to one person’s questionable act of sacrifice thousands of years ago or to the notion that only sacrifice matters, never living one’s life for a cause, never protecting others, never building community, just dying heroically to “make everything right”. And the way that idea has permeated through all of western media.

I mean, no offense, but your entire comment is entirely inaccurate to Christianity. Jesus IS God. He wasn’t born and then fucked up by some higher power. They are “one” (Trinity) so Jesus agreed to go along with that stuff. The stuff about Mary…. Eh fair enough I guess, though they never had sex, hence the “virgin birth.” But it was meant to be viewed not as a burden (sucks for you ur stuck with my kid now lol) but a great honor (you shall give birth to the Messiah, savior of us all!).

Christianity is terrible, but for much better reasons, and comments like yours won’t help in honest discussions to slowly change Christian minds and help them free themselves from their religious bonds. Instead, they’ll just instantly go to the “oh s/he doesn’t even understand my religion or care enough to look in to it to find the truth. His/her heart is just closed out of -personal reason- and THATS why they aren’t Christian instead of a logical reason.”

it’s still an accurate reaction to Christianity, though? just because she’s not reading it the way you think it ought to be read doesn’t mean it’s not a reasonable criticism.

why is it on Cerberus to slowly change Christian minds? how do you know that reading reactions like hers won’t provoke change? It seems to me like you’re assuming that provoking change is the main goal of a comment in the comments section. I think that it’s a huge burden to put your expectations of how people should react on somebody else, especially when placing them against hypothetical reactions of other people who may or may not even exist.

Pregnancy is nonetheless sucky and dangerous and she was unprepared for it, also not all sects believe that the Trinity are all one and the same like there’ve been wars over that one, it’s complicated.

Um… wasn’t really trying to “change Christian minds”. I mean, yes, I’m currently an atheist, but this isn’t really about that and I’m not really a big fan of “converting” anyone to any particular religious view other than abandoning particular interpretations that harm the identities of marginalized group members.

It was rather about my own early interactions with the church of the area I grew up, my attempts to understand it coming from a background of literally being raised secular pagan. And having that really thorough reading of the bible coincide with all this great feminist reading at the same time.

On that note, it’s worth noting that impregnating someone with or without sex is completely fucked. Like, I don’t care if you sneak into someone’s house with a turkey baster or magically blast it into someone’s uterus with your god rays. And back then, childbirth was dicey and was frequently a death sentence for the poor woman.

Impregnating someone against their will is like, well, there’s no way to make that not rapey and just going “oh, well, he’s going to be super awesome and people will love and praise you” doesn’t make that violation or the lack of consent any less monstrous in action.

And Jesus being God, at least in teenage me’s mind didn’t really make a difference and actually made it worse in a way, because he knows that a 3 day nap isn’t the same thing as genuinely dying in sacrifice and so basically would want to be worshipped for doing the Godly equivalent of fucking off to Cabo for a weekend and coming back like some modern-day cult leader.

And, yes, I know this interpretation is blasphemous and I apologize for that. I’m more just explaining why this resonates and why that presentation of “love” has always felt creepy and abusive even before I knew the concepts well enough to understand why.

Like Meme said, in some interpretations of Christianity, Christ is God. The Catholic version:

Mary was conceived by the Immaculate Conception, meaning she was without Original Sin and this made her Special amongst all humans. Perhaps this is what enabled her to give birth to Christ, given that she was literally the only person worthy enough. You could even postulate that God oversaw her birth for this specific purpose, given that he made her a special human being to begin with.

She and God did not have sex, although the idea of a girl unknowingly becoming pregnant is definitely problematic. HOWEVER, given the context of the time, by this age Mary was considered a woman – people were old when they were 40, got married as teens. People who are in their 20s now would have had several children by this point.
Also to Regalli: she was betrothed to Joseph, therefore she would have likely gotten pregnant within the year anyway, although again from a modern perspective that is squicky at best.

The way I interpret the sacrifice of Christ is that since Christ is God, humans are tainted with the original sin apparently, God sort of deigned to manifest in human flesh and walk the Earth, experiencing Human life in a way he couldn’t just by watching. he experiences pain, prejudice, suffering and then gets killed. I actually don’t completely agree with the sacrificial lamb concept. What I think Christ meant when he said “they know not what they do” what he meant was “be more merciful and understanding”.

This is what we get from the Christ movement – we go from an unyielding, harsh God to a God inclined to be more merciful, who heals the sick, restores sight, personally casts the devil away, because he is more understanding of human nature in all its facets. Especially in Jesus’ time, where there were no convenient vaccines, doctors, people died before the age of 50, and words could literally kill- literally got Christ killed. So for Christ to have “miraculously” gotten himself out of that predicament, would have meant sort of copping out on fully understanding people/humans – there were two guys with Jesus, and many more were crucified before him.

Furthermore, eternal damnation is not receiving that learned mercy. It is being completely devoid of God’s love (whatever that means- fire, bromstone, nothingness etc). Basically the same status as Satan/Lucifer, so you get stuck with him. That being said, I think that one of the main issues with interpretations is that many modern people refuse to acknowledge the times – people are STILL getting stoned for shitty reasons – and they conveniently forget the whole point of Christ’s message of the New Testament, which is: to be merciful and compassionate.

It’s not really something that resonates with me. And no matter how you interpret it, the virgin birth myth is still just awful. Like, even in your example, your argument is “well, she would have probably gotten pregnant with a partner she consented with, so it was okay for her to be raped because she was ‘special'”.

Which given the very definite stance I have on consent and boundaries and the inflexible importance this has in my daily life, any type of apologism for that is unlikely to resonate with me.

It might have been a bit less creepy if god itself had not first decreed that being pregnant and giving birth shouldn’t be a really painful experience because he needed to punish ALL OF THE women more than it punished men, for when A woman and a man committed the exact same offense way back when.

And of course, it is worth noting that the most special thing a woman can be is to be allowed to become the mother of the Truly Special Saviour Dude.

Thank you for explaining this! I’ve been trying to understand why the parents here, and your mother if I remember correctly, are making such a deal out of being willing to die for their kids. It just seemed like such a non-sequitur to me. If, when I did something she didn’t approve of, my mother said to me that she would die for me, my response would have been “what’s that got do with anything?” But it turns out my mother wasn’t horrifically emotionally manipulative.

It’s tragic Joyce is losing her faith in a dramatic irony sort of way. Jesus’ whole ministry was about giving unconditional love and support to the people disdained and hated by society as a whole. People who were persecuted for being “ungodly” for whatever reason. He ended up being killed for it. Joyce is undergoing torment for giving God’s love to Becky and suffering horribly but can’t recognize it as Christianity because her version of Christianity exalts persecuting minorities and self-righteousness with no true sacrifice. So, in other words, man does Joyce need to meet Historical Jesus.

“See, originally Sarah was going to be just as important to this universe as you are.”

“But… I… wait… what?”

“But she didn’t have the right personality to be important.”

“But… you GAVE her that personality!”

“Yeah, I know, I goofed up. Or maybe it was a free will thing. Not sure. Anyhow, please get around to having sex soon so I can put it up on the internet for lots of people to watch.”

“… WHAT?”

“You see, I make money off of you kids having sex. I’d say that’s why I gave you all sex drives, except I hadn’t really planned on Slipshine when I started and I was going to give you all sex drives anyway.”

Baby steps there if that’s the direction she’s going. If she keeps her faith, but adjusts it like she do in the Walkyverse, then she needs a new home base. I have a hard time believing every church is full of bigots.

I’m UU and I honestly can’t see Joyce enjoying one of our services. We keep telling people to think, for one reason. I don’t think Joyce has ever been to a church that encouraged thinking, much less demanded it. Our Youth RE has a section on building your own theology, with study from classical mythology and Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. Joyce’s head would explode.

Joyce may not lose her faith outright. She’s hardly to that point yet. She’s started questioning it, started to see hairline cracks instead of blind devotion, and that’s very, very good. She could become an atheist. Or she could come through it and end up with a much stronger, far more nuanced, less bigoted faith.
#askmehowIknow
(Had a childhood just like Joyce’s, nearly became an atheist, ended up with the nuanced liberal Christianity instead).

I still have my faith in a way now. As a child I had blind devotion, then I honestly questioned whether any of it existed. I came to my answers but it came at the cost of being nearly faithless in the eyes of most. I believe that a higher power is there and guides us all subtly, but I lost any belief that it is fair/just/loving and I don’t worship in any way. I just do my best to live by what I view as the real teachings: being kind, helpful, and forgiving as much as I can to my fellow man.

I’m pretty sure that according to Christianity, true religion is accepting Jesus. Salvation through faith, ultimately possible because of grace. That other “being good and kind” stuff is a consequence, and you can’t be saved merely by being good and kind alone.

Uhm, Pittsburgh, that’s actually a very specific American branch of Christianity which is actually the kind which got America’s early settlers exiled to the United States. It’s bizarre to realize, growing up in the Bible Belt, “Christianity” as you know it was actually a weird fringe sect. For example, that doesn’t describe CATHOLICISM which is the largest sect in the world or Earth Orthodox which is the second largest sect.

it’s weird, but i don’t think that Joyce is losing her faith? she’s just seeing the community around her faith for what it is. she’s learning how to view it critically. questioning your community does not equal losing her faith.

…the inability of most churches i’ve been in to question their own actions and hold themselves accountable has been one of their biggest flaws, honestly.

Joyce’s issue seems to be if Original Sin isn’t something on humanity then God made a world which was flawed and thus is flawed and thus isn’t likely to exist. I.e. She can’t reconcile the Problem of EvilTM.

nah, that’s not her issue. her issue is that her best friend’s dad kidnapped her best friend for being a lesbian with a shotgun and nobody seems to care that their lives were in danger or to think that that’s more important than her best friend being a lesbian or even be willing to give them a hug after going through a near-death experience.

Joyce doesn’t have issues. her church has issues. what she’s dealing with is how to react to those issues as a young adult who’s suddenly responsible for all of her choices.

I am wondering what would have been the right response for Joyce. That is, what she thinks her mother and John should have said, to be the good Christian people she thought they were. And how they could do that without doing the same 180 degree turn about on homosexuality she did.

i guess i’m thinking something more like Hank did. which. first thing he did was hug her. because his daughter just survived a near-death experience.

like. I don’t think that Joyce was asking for much? all Joyce wanted when she called her mom was her mom’s love. but then her mom came in with that diatribe about how she would die for Joyce. and Joyce wasn’t asking for that. she doesn’t need her mom to sacrifice her life for her in order to prove that she cares. she needs her mom to be there for her.

idk there’s the question of what Joyce was hoping for and what I think they should have done. I think Joyce was hoping that they would do what she did, or at least some of it; that they would accept Becky, that they would prioritize her and Becky’s wellbeing over themselves. she just wanted her family to be there for them.

personally i feel like they’re all old enough and experienced enough to have encountered gay people and learned not to be jerks. John and Carol are not children, and they are not naive. their persistent ignorance is a choice, fostered by privilege. in Carol’s case, she enforces it dogmatically. in John’s case, I feel like he doesn’t care as long as it doesn’t personally affect him. it’s not like gay people suddenly started existing when Katy Perry started singing about how she kissed a girl, you know?

Now I am digressing to wondering if Joyce would have reacted the same if Ross had reacted in some hostile but sane way*. Like if he insisted Anderson move her to a single room and ordered her to pray more so she could clean this filthy sin from her heart.

On Christmas break when Becky tells Joyce all about this, and asks “Is that still really what you believe? That what I did was a mistake?”

…idk, that’s a hard question. I mean, like, the benefit of doing it this way means that what’s at stake is really clear. it’s a distinct visual language: Becky’s life vs. her death. the story you describe would be more about reclaiming power, and would probably coincide with Becky figuring out how not to live under her dad’s thumb. Thumbdad!

I’d like to believe that Joyce would still choose her friend over her culture. Joyce compares her to Billie, who makes a lot of choices that Joyce can’t necessarily approve of but still considers her a friend. also like: at this point in the comic all that Joyce knows is that Becky got kicked out of school and her dad wanted to fix her, which is why Becky ran away. but her support for her friend seems pretty unconditional. so I think that she’d still give the same answer.

…if Toedad was a Thumbdad, it’d be more of a gray area, because he’s still providing for her daily needs and isn’t outright as dangerous? He would probably still be as abusive, though. You don’t need a gun to be abusive; you just need to be controlling. He might need proof that Becky’s working on not being as gay i.e. a beard. Becky might still end up homeless. He could withdraw funding and housing until she’s not gay anymore, like what Carol’s threatening.

Ugh. Toedad, you are such a jerk. THE WORST (or at least up there for the worst)!!!
Jesus was about loving others so he died for us, but he never killed other people for it. You brandishing a gun around and saying you’re dying for someone is NOT THE SAME THING. ARGH!
Poor Joyce. I want to hug her and Becky and Jocelyn and all the characters
;_;

I think it varies with the individual. I actually do it naturally when I get REALLY into a song, but I learned to suppress that ish the first time my family got side eye from, oh, half the congregation. (This was during a “contemporary” service, too.) For a lot of others, it’s pretty much the same as folding hands.

I figured that the inclusion of movements in the hymns was seen as a way of keeping people from falling asleep during the service. Some can fall asleep standing up, but it’s hard to pull off while moving in time to music.

It kind of varies. Some churches have people sitting solemnly, even while singing. Some places if you feel the music enough you’ll wave your hands or start to get up and dance. It’s more reaching towards God than God reaching towards you. Also, there are quite a few religious pieces that can be so moving, even if one is not religious (see for example: The Prince of Egypt).

Christians can believe just about anything. Can incorporate just about any aspect of their culture into their religion. Comes from having five origin stories (gospels plus Paul).

Kill Jews? Check. Enslave others? You betcha! Make money a proxie for God’s love? All the time. Atonement theology (Jesus had tho be tortured to death so that god would love us) is the worst. Like a virus that takes over you computer and demands compliance before releasing your files.

That gods love is unconditional and he won’t rest until everyone is saved is explicit in several places. The good shepherd brings back lost sheep no matter what. The prodigal son is welcomed before asking forgiveness. If Grace is True by Phillip Gulley makes that case. I find it compelling, but my parish and church leaders don’t.

But having more origin stories than wolverine means that a whole mess of cultural aspects take charge. God is a king, not your loving father. God is a war leader. God will get you vengeance. God supports whatever stupid decision you make. Its his fault if you fail that test, since he could have willed you to pass it. The list of stupidity and cruelty cloaked in gods name and enabled by religion is impresively long.

We use toxic as a modifier becasuse non-toxic is an alternative. Toxic masculinity, toxic families, toxic relationships, toxic religion. You might need to build your own family and religion. And spirituality might be a better option, since Jesus never started a religious institution.

Church for me lasts 2 hours. One hour is a mix of worship and announcements. The other hour is the actual message.

Nondenominational churches I’ve been to, including my current one, tend to view worship being as important as the message of the day, so they try to split the time evenly. Worship is important because it’s supposed to not just be singing/dancing, but actively talking with God.

Joyce isn’t suffering much PTSD with regard to Toedad. The truly traumatizing thing (to her) is that he’s holding up a mirror to her religion. She’s seeing a reflection of it taken to a logical conclusion (not necessarily the only logical conclusion, but one that’s hard to deny as a plausible conclusion) and she doesn’t like what she sees, and every time she thinks about him she sees another aspect and she likes it even less.

Hard to say. She could be having a PTSD episode, drawing an uncomfortable and involuntary connection between her saviour and a lunatic, or some combination thereof. My bet’s on that last one, but only tomorrow’s context will tell.

It… really just seems like a narrative flashback to show us what the song reminded her of. I mean it COULD be PTSD considering what she went through, but I feel like people in these comments jump to that too often and too quickly because of Amber.

Someone who wants to get away in the Confusion. personally I think the 2005 Confusion 5.0 GT is the best ride, but I know lots of people who say the 2009 redesign with the IRS and computer-controlled transmission was better. I prefer as little electronics as possible between me and my ride and the lighter car of the pre-2006 hit-a-concrete-wall-at-35-MPH-and-everyone-walks-away-without-a-scratch crash standards. I mean airbags were bad enough…

Oh man, that went dark so quickly. Poor Joyce. She’s never gonna see religion or at least religious teachings the same way again. Not saying she can’t be religious anymore ever, but the way she sees this particular church’s teachings is probably gonna change forever and this is all she’s ever known. Damn.

Why has no one gotten this girl to a therapist yet?! First the near rape, then the near murder, and her starting to see her family for not being as perfect as she thought. There’s a bit of questioning of her faith in there as well I think. She needs to sit and chat with someone before she goes crazy….ier

Joyce does need a therapist, but aside from Roz giving her a card, there has been no indication of people suggesting it. Of course, seeing how her mother doesn’t even recognize Toedad as being in the wrong, and how her sect seems to discount psychologists in lieu of prayer… And her friends at college, well-meaning as they are, may not feel comfortable taking their friend to a therapist. And for Joyce, telling some stranger about it will make it TOO real. Telling her best friend was already so awful she couldn’t bear to do it herself.

A lot of fundamentalist Christians don’t believe in psychology for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: Freud was all about sex so psychology is perverted, if you have faith you won’t suffer from any sort of mental illness or trauma, it’s sinful to not be cheerful, psychology/psychiatry is just trying to remove God from the equation and you should pray more, it’s all in your head so it isn’t real and you should pray more, those people aren’t Christians.

If they are okay with therapy, it’s often only from a small list of “Christian therapists”. These people are largely untrained, unaccredited, and more likely to do harm than good.

Having been to several of these “Christian Therapists” in my teenage years before finally working up the courage to try again with an ACTUAL therapist who agrees that the “pray it away” approach was way more harmful than helpful?

Yeeeep. Also, depression and anxiety are often seen as a time sins rather than an affliction. A Good Christian(TM) is joyful, and doesn’t worry because God is in control, you see. Being depressed is a choice to many. Anxiety means you haven’t been praying and “casting all your cares on Him.” It’s one of the the many awful effects of “Pullquote Syndrome,” taking verses out of context to sound live motivational posters.

It’s quite likely that, even if her parents knew about the attempted rape and her reaction to it, they would think that her PTSD is a sign that she hasn’t fully “let go and let God” or, at most, think that it can be solved by them joining her in prayer.

And/or that before even letting her see one (if they did), their first and immediate response would be to yank her out of college and, by extension, the whole “sinful world” that has hurt her and filled her with doubt and unwomanly anger.

there’s a lot of stigma around needing mental help. i feel like some of it derives from how absolutely terrible psychology has been in the past, but some of it derives from an old attitude that views people who break down as weak or malingerers…if you weren’t raised with going to see a therapist as a legitimate option then a lot of the time it wouldn’t immediately occur to you that you shouldn’t be able to just handle things on your own.

and a lot of the time the first place people can even get therapists/counselors is at college. which can be touch or go. but at least it’s also free

My PTSD dates from the ’60s and early ’70s, and I still get nightmares. Part of why I didn’t get treated after someone tried to kill me back in 2001, I couldn’t get “more” PTSD. If you were already having nightmares from before (and other things) they wouldn’t treat for anything you already had.

It would have been nice to not continue to have nightmares and depression for another decade, I could have been so much better off the first decade of the 21st century.

While we’re on the topic here I got to stop and wonder besides Hank and Jocelyn does everyone in Joyce’s church think the same way as Carol when it comes to Becky and her situation with her dad; is Joyce’s home town set in the Family Guy version of Texas where everyone is depicted as a over religious Straw man idiot who brandishes a gun at all times?

Hopefully a portion of the church that sees it Joyce’s way will starte to speak up and prove me wrong.

Even if they do, no one will say anything. People like Carol are vocal, and just plain mean, and there’s probably enough of her ilk in that church that no one will want to make that sort of trouble for themselves.

I suspect there’s a range of views in the church. Probably from “Ross didn’t go far enough”, through an awful lot of “Should never have gone to violence, but you can understand how he was provoked” (with a side dose of “He raised her wrong” probably ending somewhere around condemning Ross and praying for Becky to repent her sinful ways.
You’re not going to have people who openly accept a lesbian because this church preaches homosexuality is a sin. People who don’t agree will have left long ago – or if they’re staying for other reasons will be keeping it quiet to avoid getting kicked out.
There are probably some who would be sympathetic, but are there because of their spouses or parents. There are almost certainly more closeted LGBTQ folks, but it’s even riskier for them to speak up.

There are also quite likely other folks in town who don’t go to this church. Or maybe any church at all. They might speak up, but they’re not here.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians are taught from a young age that homosexuaity is inherently sinful and wrong, and that gay people should be looked down upon for it. To call this depiction a straw man is to pretend that the very real hatred LGBTQIA people face doesn’t exist. Stop doing that, newllend.

it’s funny because none of the gun reactions have been straw men at all

i literally had my grandmother shut me up when i tried to talk about gun control with a long rant about what if somebody broke into our house and was going to kill my other grandmother what would i do if i didn’t have a gun

spoilers: i don’t have a gun, and if the other person in this situation also didn’t have a gun i’d feel a lot safer

I think religious park of Joyce would be able to separate the meaning of Jesus’ death from what Ross’ intent was. I suppose PTSD blurs that though.

Still, something that awful would typically be brought to the Pastor or one of the elders. Then again with how judge mental the congregation seems, that’s probably not going to happen. So not only is worship rattling Joyce, she doesn’t have the typical channel to talk to.

I can’t help but find irony in the fact that her home life is damaging her more then college at this point.

See, Joyce’s church (like my childhood church) probably preaches the theory of atonement where God was so damn angry at us for all the horrible things we do that he wanted to kill us, and so Jesus let God kill him instead, because he Just Loves Us So Much.

It’s very easy to get from there to Toedad, so angry at his daughter for being lesbian that he brings out the gun. And now Joyce is taking that back full circle and seeing that the God this song, this church worships, is an awful lot like Toedad.

As a Joyce, I’ve had the same realizations. And your comment about “her home life is damaging her more than college” made me chuckle. I love being at college, as stressful and overwhelming as it often is. I hate going home and absolutely dread school breaks, and always get back to school in need of a couple of sessions with a school therapist. :-/

I actually have some thoughts on this: Harry wasn’t that bad off, all things considered. You want a universe that DESPERATELY needs therapists, watch Evangelion. Harry’s support network was so large and so strong that his day-to-day was pretty good. Yeah, there were utter shits like Malfoy pre-HBP, and Harry had horrible moments like Sirius’ death, but he was surprisingly well-adjusted, even in a vacuum.

When home’s not a sanctuary, it’s never a good time. I hope your situation changes.

I hate that way of teaching things. Vengeful God definitely was a thing, but that was way back when people had a habit of sacrificing one another. I prefer it when churches focus on building relationships over following rules – Relationship with God, and more importantly building community. Not “We need to go out and preach to the masses!” but more “Francis is in the Hospital for a heart attack. Let’s see what we can do to help his family.”

Blegh to Joyce’s love of Christian music being ruined by Ross. I wonder where she will turn to now. I’m not religious at all, but I find so many things wrong with taking it upon yourself to potentially end a bunch of people’s lives because you feel like you’re right (or maybe Ross desperately wanted things to stay the same).

Isn’t that one of the worst sins, pride? The one that begets all others? Like it’s one thing if you go out saving a kid from being hit by a car, but it’s totally another to try to abduct or kill a person, and then act like it’s the same exact thing. It’s wrong to take it upon yourself to make the decisions which only God can make, correct? And then to claim that’s what God would want when it’s really what you selfishly want.

More on topic, I like religious songs that are less heavy/guilt ridden and more metaphorical, so they can be applied to pretty much anything. Focus on the Gift, not the Guilt! Maybe Joyce could listen to this song:

So glad I was raised Catholic (mostly). Catholics don’t have annoying adult contemporary music in church. We have hymns. Hymns aren’t earworms.

I never got the point of this music, in any case, or why people got so emotional about it. Like in the CD commercial for Christian pop music that was always on when I was a kid. People were like, crying in it, and even as a kid, I had secondhand embarrassment for them. Like, a lot of people saw that commercial, and saw them being idiots.

…I’m trying to imagine that in the Catholic Church I attended as a child, and honestly, it’s just not happening. Church Is Not For Fun, Church Is Because Original Sin….and something. Guilt? Obligation? I don’t know, I was never very good at the whole religion/faith thing.

I don’t mean to generalize, but in my experience Catholic Mass wasn’t meant to be exciting so much as introspective. Everyone was quiet, participated when they needed to, and routine mass was done max 1hr 15min. It was efficient. But my high school priest was a wonderful man who gave the most interesting and thoughtful homilies.

I went one time to a baptist church as a child, and man I was there for hours. We left after about 2 hours. Early.

If you are talking hymn, do you mean the sort that’s been around for a hundred years at least?
The only one I do remember offhand is “ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” which I think goes back to Luther.
Singing creates some sort of emotional connection to the people you are singing with, which makes singing in a large choir or with a really large group of people a touching experience. I think it is a human need to feel a connection to other people and “the world” that goes beyond actual words, a cnnection that is felt. singing with others can provide this experience.
Which I why I only do this with those who do not pretend to have all the answers, because the experience is easily exploited.

For the church masses you’re mostly correct, but at my church we had a Protestant convert directing music, and there was a lot more adult contemporary Christian music and the raise your hands dance in the aisles…. And I stopped going because bleh. I go to church for the quiet time to tune the priest’s homily out, it’s always the same anyway, something something something “join the priesthood, please we need more priests, oh please, please, please.”

I was raised protestant and went to church every sunday for several years. We had hymns, lots of hymns and nothing but. No contemporary music, and definitely no pop. I think the newest ones had lyrics that were about 30-40 years old at the time (so well over half a century by now) and pretty much all the music dated back to before 1900.

Jesus died for our sins, so the saying goes. Toedad, on the other hand, was willing to kill Becky’s soul through ‘deprogramming’ her of her ‘sin’, even if he had to die in the process. Rather a twisted form of self-sacrifice I would say.

This is not PTSD or anything like that. This is Joyce’s normal, healthy, active mind at work. Certain things; certain words; certain sounds; even certain smells are going to bring up an unbidden memory. It may be a cherished memory; it may be something a little more bittersweet; it may be of a time that was a living breathing nightmare. Even now the scent of a specific brand of perfume still makes me think of this one lady I dated for maybe a year — and that was almost twenty years ago now.

PTSD is 110% perfectly normal. It’s not a foreign thing, it’s built into your head. Into everyone’s heads. It’s a perfect storm of memories and emotions and fear that fries your mind until you don’t know what’s real. The sanity is lost over time. Joyce definitely has it from the party, I bet this is going to ride along with that. :/

Flashbacks (and other symptoms) as a result of trauma are normal and a difficult but positive part of healing. It becomes a disorder when it persists and is disabling. Being unable to walk around alone so long after the original event (that douchebag at the party – Ryan?) is a good example of that. Trauma on top of trauma just makes it worse.
There are real parallels between the two events, too. Both claimed to be Christian and both were abusive under cover of Christian-sounding words.

I don’t think it’s that though. I don’t think this is traumatic PTSD or even just an association triggering a memory. She’s realizing just how deeply her particular church is linked to what Ross did and why he did it. She’s seeing the connection between the song and the meaning behind it and Toedad’s actions.
In some ways it’s worse than PTSD. It’s not just “Church triggers PTSD flashbacks”, it’s “Church is another source of the trauma.”

Thank goodness someone else is bringing this up. Pathologizing normal, natural responses to serious and traumatic events is downright harmful. PTSD is a disorder; a dysfunctional set of behaviours that often indicate difficulty adapting (or maladaptive behaviours/mindsets).

The symptoms of a disorder aren’t necessarily a disorder. They can be perfectly normal human processes to deal with an extreme event. It’s when they refuse to go away and interfere with your life that they’re a disorder.

One thing I meant to post earlier: the strip may be in the “eternal now,” but the songs sure aren’t. These were the oldies by the last time I went to church. My sister made fun of me for playing newer songs, saying they were really old. (Hymns don’t count–they’re supposed to be old.)

Which is a horrible experience and often a great way forward. Faith in religion is faith in people pretending to be something they aint. I had to lose a whole lot of bad faith before I could really enjoy being Christian.

Bagge: “Humdumdumb-Dumbing-of-age time. I’m so glad ToeDad is gone so I don’t have to worry about any more little episodes. Let me just real quick power up my laptop and put it on this fragile shelf as I dust the glass cabinet. Let’s see, here comes the webpage now, just as hold in the crystal glass…”

Error message: “The content of this page has been determined to be too harsh for your sensitive temper and can only be displayed in a maddrassed room under the guidance of a professional anger management terapeut.”

Welp, now I’m getting flashbacks to when I used to go to church.
They always played those sort of songs, and the lyrics always used to make me feel uneasy, even when I was trying to get Jesus. I recently looked one up with my boyfriend, because he thought I was pulling his leg. His church experience was old style Catholic, and he hadn’t gone since he was a kid (not counting funerals.)
He was also pretty unnerved, and we stopped the video prematurely.

MAAAAAAAAAAAAN, look at Becky’s face. Her mask is working overtime. SHE did not have to wait to the middle of the song to see the parallel to Ross, and that is just one of the MANY things that freaks her out just about now.

No one feels like mentioning that “don’t be gay” is often shoehorned into “honor your father and mother, and through them God”? If being gay is shameful, then yes, certainly, it’s not honoring anybody.

And “dishonor means death” is not so far from Western cultures as most think. :/

As a Baptist pastor and worship leader, I gotta agree with the general annoyance that so much Contemporary Christian Music is. Thoughtless lyrics and facile music, provided for a band to blast across the congregation (who may or may not choose to join in – it really makes no difference) rather than a shared act of contemplation and celebration.

Only because we think he was wrong.
He was willing to die to save his daughter’s soul from hell. How can that be selfish and hateful?

And of course, as I said up above, “Christ’s ransom” really falls apart when you realize the Jesus part of God only had to suffer and die to pay that ransom because the God part of God decreed that somebody had to suffer. Makes no sense. Shouldn’t be necessary.

Are they singing the song the same way it is sang in the youtube video?
This church going looks weird to me.
I knew of the “Sister act” kind of way from years ago, but this seems more like a small concert.
Not bad bad way, but seriously weird.

Weirdly, I’m reminded of when I was in church choir (Protestant church, so we were a bit more on the solemn side when it came to hymns depending on the season). But one time, the priest had written bible fanfiction to bring into their sermon. It was just… really random and I had no idea how to react to it.

But just saying Joyce, if the priest brings up some kind of scripture to justify Toedad? RUN!

Joyce is being triggered by the mention of “die for me”, and she was hoping going to church would be the reaffirmation of everything she feels she’s lost recently.

Joyce is realizing that her church taught Ross that he’s morally justified in committing reprehensible actions to his own daughter, as long as he would “die for her”, and that, in his mind, he was acting as Jesus would.

I don’t remember anything like that from Catholic mass either. Also, in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, the whole sketch on Protestant religion is people singing one of these songs; so it looks like it’s one of their trademarks.

I want to make some kind of cynical or snarky comment that disparages religion or inflates secular worldviews here, but I can’t. Because I have seen almost this exact scenario play out more than once, and it just makes me kinda sad. When a person sets aside their feelings and thinks about their beliefs and the effects of their religious teachings for the first time…. that can break a person. And I’ve never seen it happen painlessly.

Very interesting David. You’re tackling a subject absolutely loaded with land mines. I’m not sure I’ll agree with where you eventually go with it, but I very much respect your efforts to do so. Either way – I’m sure it’ll be an interesting ride.

That music is HORRIBLE. Cheesy, kitschy, uninspired, stupid and HORRIBLE. If I had to choose christian music, I’d choose Don Francisco and Joni Eareckson over this pathetic whiny bullshit. (Yes I know those names cause I was a christian once. Long ago.)

…one of the weird things about Christian doctrine as expressed through worship music is that it’s sort of trying to create an emotional reaction in you that pushes you to be more of this ideal that’s incompletely conceived, well-intentioned, and nearly impossible to achieve.

Like. this song. it’s all about amazing love, right, but it’s also about obligation. God Loves Us so we have to love him back. He sacrificed his life so we have to sacrifice our lives. it’s the stylization of songs, now, to be very ambiguous so that they can lead you on an emotional journey where you can be yes, yes, yes. but if you stop to critically examine…

it starts out in love, but it turns into fealty. it focuses on Jesus, and you promise to sacrifice your life, but how you sacrifice it? nowhere to be found. you glamorize dying for your faith but you don’t glamorize living as a person in it. you focus on how much you owe instead of the fact that the debt was cleared. it turns into shackles, not freedom, because the focus is on keeping you in, not letting you go. if everything you do is about Jesus, what do you do when it’s not about Jesus? it comes down to how violent you can be to yourself in order to prove how holy you are. or other people.

idk. I hit college and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life because I was supposed to sacrifice everything to God and listen to what he wanted me to do. but when I asked, he didn’t answer, and I wasn’t going to lie to myself and pretend that he did.

I believed that “less of me, more of Him” nonsense as if less of myself could somehow make God happy. I didn’t even really think of myself as a person with wants or needs for a long, long time. unlearning that meant I had to distance myself from the church. doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in God; it just means that the church doesn’t have the tools to help me with what I need.

and that’s sad, because we like to act like we have all the answers. but overall we don’t have the courage to be honest with ourselves.

This is pretty much dead wrong as far as I can tell in every way. I can’t speak for other churches but all of the ones I belonged to focused on living godly lives and caring for others rather than dying for the cause, so to speak.

The alternative, however, is someone who would knock down cripples, shove aside little old ladies and kids, and kick puppies and kittens down stairs in an all-consuming drive for himself and himself alone. Religion and its teachings are just another force, like government and their laws or a social groups and their mores, to get people to act in a manner that is of benefit to all. The greater good for the greater number, and all that.

And let’s face it — man generally will not do something unless they perceive that they too will benefit from it. So teaching that “if you make God happy He’ll take you to heaven” is a promise of a reward, not too far removed from your parents telling you that you needed to get a shot but “if you’re a brave little boy and don’t cry we’ll go and get an ice cream cone”.

Is it perfect? Of course not, and anyone who tries to tell you that it is is selling something. But for the most part, it does work.

My experience is a bit different Willis but it’s very subjective. Some people are deeply effected by religion and do change. The problem is this change can be for the better or for the worse. I’ve worked with alcoholics, for example, and people who religion helped clean up their lives but sometimes it’s opened them up to self-righteousness as well as homophobia.

haahaha yikes. you know that making your own comment is totally free, right? but since you’re here, what the hell. let’s do this.

what does this even have to do with my very personal comment about my very personal history with Christianity vs. an obscure and anonymous Religion that sure sounds like it shares a lot with Christian history?

why do you think that all people without religion would immediately resort to beating up the disabled, little old ladies and children when, historically speaking, the philosophy of eugenics developed perfectly well right alongside Christianity? source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4001825/

i challenge you to a source-off. prove to me with non-fictional examples that people left to themselves will inevitably destroy each other. i’ll be sitting here with the demonstrated continued existence of humankind. go on, i’ll wait.

My hypothesis was drawn from evidence that is mostly anecdotal, but I’m sure you’ve seen many of the same things that I have — the videos of the stampedes at WalMart on Black Friday to be the first to get to that big-screen TV, or the persons looting the grocery or convenience stores during a period of civil unrest, the ‘wildings’ that go on when hooligans come together and assume that there is strength and anonymity in numbers, or even the frenzy that occurs between grown men over a $6.00 baseball or a free T-shirt tossed into the stands at a ball game. Yet I’m sure, under other circumstances, that these same individuals would consider themselves to be “good people”.

And while William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” is indeed fiction, it is still a powerful statement of what could happen when the man is reduced to being just another animal struggling for survival. Conditions in wartime will sometime force segments of society down to that level, but fortunately, circumstances have not yet forced us all down to that condition.

no sources, and no answers to my questions. yiikes. can’t say we’re playing on the same ballfield here, Bill. you’re never gonna pass the class if you can’t back up your arguments with citations. but I still have too much time on my hands, so I’ll play.

3) the ‘wildings’. “hooligans”. i’m honestly not even going to try and figure out what you’re trying to communicate here because it is completely lost on me.

4) so, what, does fighting make somebody evil? are those the standards we’re judging people by? does fighting over a baseball or a t-shirt make them worse than the person who threw the t-shirt or baseball? is conflict a bad thing now? are these the things that you’re saying? have people died because grown men couldn’t get their act together and figure out a safe way to fight for a t-shirt without human carnage?

it’s funny that you bring up Golding’s Lord of the Flies, because that was a direct satire of another book called Coral Island, which was a product of British imperialism. Neither of these books would would exist without British culture, which has had a direct influence on both America and most of the world. let me amend your argument: “it is still a powerful statement of what could happen when the white entitled man is reduced to being just another animal struggling for survival.”

when you put it like that, what makes Lord of the Flies such a powerful satire is because it’s a satire of white entitlement and culture. white people aren’t the only ones out there. your sample size is too small for the argument that you’re making: that all people will resort to killing each other when forced to survive together. unless you only think that white men are people? if that’s what you think you might as well just come out with it and say it. I’ll judge you super hard, but you’ll get points for honesty.

more to the point: your experiences are not universal. I haven’t seen the videos of the stampedes at Walmart, or the persons looting groceries, or the “wildings”, or grown men fighting over t-shirts. I was able to Google these things, based on what you told me, but they’re not a part of my experience. because not everyone has the same experience.

which, you know, is the point. It’s super rude to come onto somebody else’s post about their pain and start going on about how all of society is doomed to kill each other unless they lie to each other and force each other to behave. that’s not even true of white society. we’re fully capable of cleaning up our acts and doing good things because they’re good to do.

I’m still sitting here with the indisputable evidence that people have existed for millennia and managed to build cultures together with hope for the future instead of killing each other the moment they could think for themselves. we started in the mud and we’re reaching for the stars and i fully believe that if we slamdunk ourselves back in the mud we’ll start climbing to the stars again

citation: the rediscovery of maths, vaccines, the attempt for world peace that is the UN, that we’ve actually gone up to the moon, Stephen Hawking, Beyonce, Star Trek, Germany’s renewable energy problem from May where they had to pay people to use energy, the Hamilton musical, the entire field of history and how much work’s gone into nosing in dead people’s business, the fact that Homestuck actually ended, and the fact that childbirth kills so many less people now than it did a hundred years ago. I COULD GO ON.

Religion has been a part of human history from the very beginning. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. I had a friend who was CONVINCED that religion caused most of the war’s evils then I pointed out he was ignoring the Soviet Union and Mao’s China as well as North Korea. He just sort of blanked them out because they didn’t fit his narrative.

Uh okay so I’ve always been an atheist and I have literally no idea why I’d want to kick a puppy LMAO.

Seriously, are you actually saying in order to have ethics you need to subscribe to some sort of religion…? (I’m actually legitimately asking that, by the way! As an atheist that concept is so foreign to me I’m having a hard time understanding if that’s the actual point of your post or not.)

And at the risk of sounding snarky (which isn’t actually my intent, but I DO want to point this out)…

[TW: violent racism]

“the ‘wildings’ that go on when hooligans come together and assume that there is strength and anonymity in numbers”

Not all people need the fear of punishment in Hell to be decent people. I’m agnostic and I would never kick a dog even if it were mad and trying to kill me lol.
And as others have pointed out, religion doesn’t necessarily make you better. The Catholic priest in my cathedral had such toxic sermons. No one would have improved as human beings from anything he taught.

I’m christian myself but raised in a more liberal church with both my parents being ministers. I grew up with a church tolerant towards my homosexuality.

Seeing a depiction of Christianity through Joyce’s eyes in this comic has been very confusing as none of it is familiar in any way to me. Recently though I had to attend a funeral in a more conservative church and their sermons and hymns were …. very different. Like Joyce, I had that “oh god” moment in the middle of the preacher speaking about how those who don’t follow their denomination are going to hell. (I seriously did not like it one bit).

I sympathize with Joyce here. I know what that moment of realization while in the middle of a congregation is like. It’s not fun. You feel unsafe and frustrated.

I had a similar experience in college when I went to a Christian college seminar and the pastor’s first lesson was, “Okay, the first thing you need to understand is everyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus is damned forever.”

To go along with religion as a force for benevolence or otherwise, religion can and does have a very strong pull for inducing conformity along its lines but is very hard to get to modify–especially in the United States where fundamentalism is an issue but also other countries. Basically, in places where there’s no legal authority modifying laws to adapt from 2000 years ago then they tend to be behind the times.

Got a name on the singer in that youtube link? I may be related to her — one of my second cousins or something (she was handing out CDs at the family reunion) was a fairly successful Christian “rock” singer in the late ’90s.

I think someone should introduce Becky to “All Fired Up“(one of my favorites from Pat Benatar [Wide Awake In Dreamland• 1988]) – I think it’s also something Joyce could think of (and perhaps even like) as a spiritual rock song. {^_^}

The beauty of this song’s lyrics is that, from the way they’re written, they could easily fit into the beliefs of people of just about any* religion (or type of religion –or even no religion at all)! The degree, or manner, to which they apply to someone’s religious beliefs is in the mind of the listener/reader.

☆~☆

🎼
Livin’ with my eyes closed
Goin’ day to day
I never knew the difference
I never cared either way
Lookin’ for a reason
Searchin’ for a sign
Reachin’ out with both hands
I gotta feel the kick inside

All fired up (now I believe there comes a time)
All fired up (when everything just falls in line)
All fired up (we live an’ learn from our mistakes)
All fired up, fired up, fired up
Hey!

Ain’t nobody livin’
In a perfect world
Everybody’s out there
Cryin’ to be heard
Now I got a new fire
Burnin’ in my eyes
Lightin’ up the darkness
Movin’ like a meteorite

All fired up (now I believe there comes a time)
All fired up (when everything just falls in line)
All fired up (we live an’ learn from our mistakes)
All fired up, fired up, fired up (the deepest cuts are healed by faith)

~“chorus”~
Now I believe there comes a time
When everything just falls in line
We live and learn from our mistakes
The deepest cuts are healed by faith
«repeats 3×»

All fired up (now I believe there comes a time)
All fired up (when everything just falls in line)
All fired up (we live an’ learn from our mistakes)
All fired up, fired up, fired up (the deepest cuts are healed by faith)

«ends with ~“chorus”~»

All fired up, now I believe there comes a time

When everything just falls in line
We live and learn from our mistakes
The deepest cuts are healed by faith
♬♪

☆~☆

~~~~~~~

*I suppose it’s theoretically possible for there to be a religion that they don’t fit into, but I can’t imagine what such a religion might be.